A valve is known from practice and is usable, for example, as a gas control valve in a fuel cell or also in a gas-powered engine.
The known valve includes a valve housing which accommodates an in particular electromagnetic actuator for an armature and is provided with a housing sleeve in which the armature is guided in an axially displaceable manner. The armature is used as a valve-closing element and cooperates with a valve seat situated on a seating plate so that a fluid flow through outflow orifices in the seating plate is controllable.
The problem in the case of the known gas valve is that the dry and gaseous medium to be controlled results in high wear demands which necessitate high-precision guiding of the armature. This cannot be reliably ensured by the previously used guiding of the armature in the housing sleeve since the housing sleeve may have the problem of concentricity variations and diameter tolerances resulting from the deep-drawing processes used in the manufacture. The eccentricities and the diameter variations increase the tilting tendency of the armature and may in turn shorten the valve's service life.